kyanar

I respectfully suggest you read the many comments from those on this forum lamenting the fact that Airpoints looks just like a credit card program and less like a frequent flyer program, and the resulting increase in "status" pax resulting in reduced benefits for those who actually earn it. And no, I don't think that by justifying issuing of SP on long haul business flights (and J doesn't really bring in the revenue by the way, C does. J is discount business on Star Alliance airlines) that it somehow justifies the sale of SP with credit cards. It does not. The amount of revenue earned by the airline for a BIS business class fare greatly exceeds the meagre revenue earned from a credit card point purchase (given that the interchange is on average about $0.75 per $100, and that's what the issuer gets not the airline - who is likely to get no more than $0.10 of that).

drajknox

There are so many what are in my opinion "throw away" inaccuracies in your posts that I won't be responding to further posts you make in this thread. I'd love to know which "one discount premium economy fare" you suggest would make one Gold - last I checked Richard Branson was planning flights to the moon but they haven't started and despite NZ being ambitious I haven't heard them announce Lunar flights either. Which flight gives you 405SP for discount premium economy - even if there is one I would respectfully suggest it wouldn't be value based upon anticipated (from what I've seen looking at many flights over a long period) NZ SP earn and there would likely be a MUCH cheaper alternative.

Your statement which implies that credit card spend makes the difference between needing "one discount premium economy fare" and needing to "fly business twice" suggests you don't understand how the restrictions work as whatever the origin/destination you are alluding to there is a minimum 50% flight earn for gold and 60% for elite requalification and it is rather rare for 1discountPEx2=2BusinessClass.

Most of us know that C is a more profitable booking class than J but J is still very profitable in most cases and most of us refer to J when quickly referring to Business Class in forums such as this.

Your statements with respect to interchange rates MAY be accurate for Australia but they are not generally that low in NEW ZEALAND (yet) (which is where the SP earning Credit Cards are available). I refer you to https://www.mastercard.co.nz/en-nz/a...d-limited.html (Elite cards as high as 2.35%) and https://www.westpac.co.nz/business/p...fees/#MasterCr (Elite cards as high as 2.05%).

I AGREE that in most cases the amount the banks pay per SP will be less than a flyer typically pays for a SP however you have to consider NZ is also providing a real service which has costs i.e. plane/fuel/staff costs etc which have to be deducted from amount paid for a flights SPs i.e. if you earn 50 status points for a $800 flight the cost per SP has to be calculated on the profit left after costs for that flight e.g. if profit $200 then $4/SP).
The banks tend to offer more SP earn on the premium cards which have higher interchange rates e.g. if Westpac Airpoints world and $225 for 1 SP Interchange potentially around $4.50/SP and if this was split 50:50 around $2.25 for NZ per SP. Remember the banks make significant amounts from Credit Cards from those who pay interest and don't pay in full so their profit is not just interchange fees. Overall I'm sure that the total revenue Air NZ earns from Westpac or ANZ vastly exceeds the profit they earn from any of us individually and overall is signficant and valuable for the Airline.

sbiddle

The real lack of a competitive FPP for the Australian market really puzzles me, particularly since Australian pax make up such % of NZ longhaul now.
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Could it simply be that unlike many of us, the vast majority of people simply don't care about earn? Surely not. 😊

kyanar

This is the last I'll say on this topic because it's dangerously close to off topic and you've demonstrated a willingness to discard context to support a strawman narrative.

Funny you ignore the fact that a Business fare (I'll use J instead of C for this, because it actually fits better here) nets a maximum of roughly 600SP-700SP - insufficient to requal for Gold. So if someone who does not or cannot use credit cards wants to requal, they have to spend a significant amount more dollars (which earns the airline significantly more) than someone who can do one premium economy and a couple of domestics (AKL to ORD earns anywhere from 300-400SP return, by the way. Plus I hear Chicago is nice to visit. Go to LHR and even a discount PE fare will net you 400SP, for significantly less than a discount Business to the same destinations).

And your statement completely ignores that for people that don't have credit cards, 100% of their SP must come from flying. Not even the US Legacies let you earn status by credit cards - for good reason, it trivialises it and diminishes recognition of actual flying - you know, the core business. Air NZ is getting almost as bad as Auckland Airport, which is a carpark and some shops with planes taking off at the perimeter.

Yes. Significantly more profitable than credit card earning. As a shareholder, I'd rather the SP be handed out for buying premium cabin seats.

I will reiterate that I said "average". I doubt - heavily - that most customers have Elite cards which typically have relatively high income requirements.

Not most cases, all cases. Banks will not be paying even $1 per SP. That's a certainty. The only benefit is that they don't have to increase capacity to support more SP handouts from credit cards. Or, god forbid, actually improve the situation for customers flying regionally throughout NZ. Credit card SP earn is merely a crutch to allow them to continue dishing out abysmal earn rates on domestic flights. There's a reason you get more SP on a NZ flight number on QF metal than on NZ metal...

But this is getting way off topic for a discussion about the survey. So that's the end of that.

poopbunny

As someone who fly's OW / QF as much as *A / NZ. For the last few years I have achieved QF Platinum much sooner than NZ*E. without any CC SP earn on QF.

I attribute this to
- QF SP earn generally better.
- QF SP threshold is lower.
- SP bonus thresholds at 500 / 1000 essentially reduces threshold further.
- they don't screw their partners as bad. QF flight number on partner tin earns same QF SP.

I received an Email from QF similar to the NZ in a year one, that placed me in the top quartile flyer of their platinum group. To me this suggests that the Plat numbers are much smaller than I initially thought. If the math is right, NZ*E numbers may not be as high as some of you make it out to be.

When NZ changed from fix SP to variable roulette SP. Full fare got only marginal SP increase, but any buckets less than full fare were severely penalised. On average NZ was now dishing out a lot less flying SP than they were before. From what I have been reading here in the forum and from my experience, I very much doubt the CC SP filled the gap as some of you have or are now struggling with status where some you previously did not.

I doubt the return of the old fixed SP earn. Those days are gone.

NZ could squeeze SP earn on CC, but I doubt they will bump up the flying SP to the same extent from whatever they squeezed from CC.

In short, any changes will mean NZ will dish out less SP than they were before. They will spin it that some will benefit more or it will be fairer for some of you...etc.

It will get harder.

Be careful what you wish for.

kiwifrequentflyer

So... what? It's pretty normal to not get status with an airline just because you did one return BP flight.

You've figured out though that PE is the sweet spot. It is. Why is this a problem? I don't see why you're upset about it, but regardless: getting 400 SP combined with CCs still doesn't get you there. You need 900 to qualify originally. Only half can come from credit cards. So you still aren't there.

And how many pax are realistically flying to LHR in PE? I love how everyone on this forum is like "it's so easy. All you have to do is spend $50,000 a year on a credit card AND fly premium economy to LHR & back AND get an extra 50SP. Wow so easy. We must be swimming in Golds."

Uh... no?

That is really hard. That is really, really hard to do.

Also add to it that PE is actually a serious step up from economy, along with the price. It is well out of range of 99% of the population. Almost no one would justify flying PE.

Literally, why do you care. Why. Why does anybody care about this.

The only argument I've been able to see that is legitimate is crowded airport lounges which again, seem exclusive to Auckland, and Koru is a much bigger suspect in that.

Otherwise this screams of elitism. "Everyone being able to get SP without flying? That makes me feel less special, since before you had to fly to get the same things!"

There is still a loyalty status with Air NZ that requires significant flying to attain.

It is called Elite.

CCs get you what, 400SP on that? And even worse, any partner earn counts in that pool too once you're Elite. Before you go and cry over how USA airlines make it harder (and also are you SERIOUS? I literally get emails every month from AA, asking me if I want to buy plat!) because you don't get SP on CCs, all of my partner flights I credit to them count towards my status with the airline. That is NOT true with Air NZ. With Air NZ, you need to do heavy flying on Air New Zealand metal. As in like what, 800-900SP worth of flying? AND you need to be spending $50k/year on a CC if you don't want to be flying the full amount to qualify?

And let's be frank: being Gold? Who cares. It's priority seating + lounges. That's it. The real benefits begin at Elite which is very hard to earn.

Air NZ is notoriously difficult to attain status for, CCs or not. I see zero evidence outside of Auckland's lounge that Air NZ is unable to handle the "extra members." Again most lounges outside of AKL are great. Peak times may be a bit of an issue in some, they are a bit of an issue everywhere in the world. They answer phone calls very fast. I get priority seating on every single flight, not even a question of if I'll get it. Upgrades galore. Put in a APD, very high chance you'll get it. Etc etc.

"As a shareholder"

What people do to win the argument. "I'm a shareholder, so I have a little bit of my portfolio in Air NZ, therefore you should listen to me!"

I'm also a shareholder. They are part of my index fund. Probably most people in this forum are somehow shareholders of Air NZ since they are one of the biggest companies in the world. This just screams of more elitism.

Do you think that most people who no longer attain status via their CC will now go "oh noes. I guess I'll have to throw in an extra PE return flight to LHR to retain my status!" ~Said nobody ever. People that attain Gold via their CC are incidental and you'd have never poached them to fly premium "instead" - they just wouldn't have given Air NZ any extra money via their CCs at all.

sbiddle

One of the things I find interesting is the perceived poor value of Airpoints for by Australian customers on here and of a couple of people I know who live in Australia and fly a lot both TT and who chose to fly long-haul via NZ. ORD, IAH and EZE are very significant markets for through traffic from Australia, and ORD in particular has very high figures (well over 30% on many flights).

While I share some of the views expressed above I also disagree with some, and I think some of us need to at times take a bit of time out and realise points and status obsessed flyers make up a very small percentage of total passenger numbers. I ran into a friend the other week who is now flying between NZ/AU and the UK around 10 times a year as a FIFO worker and as strange as it may seem to us, they don't really care about points or status despite the fact they'd clearly do well committing to a program.

As somebody who's spent anywhere from 50-80 nights a year in hotels in recent years both for leisure and work there are things that annoy me greatly (and would stop me staying at a property in the future) that somebody who stays in a hotel a few nights a year wouldn't even care about. As with FFers, balancing the needs and wants of both types of customers vs the commercial realty of running a business can be difficult.

kiwifrequentflyer

I think the program is bad value for Australian flyers. The value of Eltie is mostly in the upgrades. I am currently flying BP on all of my flights I've booked because of APD and guaranteed upgrades.

But if you lived in Australia? Ugh. To fly anywhere you'd have to go through Auckland. It would be much nicer to just fly direct.

​​​​It really does feel like a New Zealand specific program, not because of the benefits persay being New Zealand focused, but simply because Air NZ does all its international flights out of Auckland.

sbiddle

You're totally ignoring why Australians fly NZ - in many cases they can't fly direct.

You can't fly direct to IAH, EZE nor ORD for a start.

For FIFO workers flying to Southern Texas the closest you can get from Australia is DFW which then means a drive down to the coast or another flight to IAH or HOU as well as a connecting flight inside Australia to get to SYD. If you're flying from Perth to Houston (or MEL or BNE which are two other significant cities for FIFO oil workers) then NZ is the most logical connection to get there.

Given the choice of transiting through AKL or LAX to get to a destination from Australia to inside the US I'd opt for AKL any day of the week.

edmm

Not a great program for provincial New Zealand Elites either, and I said this in the survey. If you don't use your upgrades there's not a lot of benefits over Gold. You can't use the parking vouchers. And there are very poor earning rates on lots of flights. It's improved on international connections (was getting 3, now getting 8-12 for most), but flights next Monday only get me 4 SP's each way, and they weren't cheap.

kyanar

Just want to correct one error there - provided you don't mind flying from MEL or SYD, you can take UA direct to IAH. However, that does mean 16 hours on a UA 789. If I were willing to stump up the money for Polaris, that would be OK but economy on one of those things is not an experience I want to repeat. NZ economy is a significantly better experience than UA economy. Polaris lifts the game for sure though.

You're correct that from PER or ADL, NZ via AKL is generally more logical than QF to DFW. BNE being only an hour from SYD makes it a bit of a tossup.

I think you could replace AKL with just about anything in this example and still be correct. LAX is generally just not a nice place to transit.

This is honestly one of my bigger complaints. I don't even fly regional NZ, but those flights are expensive (grabaseat notwithstanding), and the earn is abysmal. When I say "better reward actual flying", these are the sort of things I'm referring to.

kiwifrequentflyer

Sure if you need to go to those specific USA destinations regularly you could choose to opt to fly via AKL instead of connecting domestically in the USA. But those are pretty corner cases. And obviously if you fit into that corner case good for you.

For most Australians it makes sense to accrue status with an airline like Qantas that they can fly with domestically and get benefits for, plus fly to a whole range of destinations around the world such as Asia directly. And so if you are flying TT a lot and need to choose an airline to accrue status with, the chances are you will pick Qantas since it makes the most sense.

And in regards to everyone saying there is no benefit to being elite if you fly regionally, you are right. The FF program is all about long haul. Parking vouchers are hardly an actual benefit even if you can use them. If you only fly regionally then having Koru is just as good as having Elite. The Elite benefits only kick in for long haul. Its the biggest problem with the Air NZ FF program, there is no incentive if you fly regionally to get status, but Air NZ probably don't care at all since they have zero competition. If they aren't competing against another airline then they have no incentive to try and keep you loyal, since you are trapped with them anyway. Internationally competition exists and so they have to compete to maintain my loyalty. If you fly domestically only I would not care at all about status and just get Koru.

Tag1987

Couple of things I would like to add:
1) CC earn will all come down to what the govt do on interchange fees. The second we see them reduced by law; out they will go the way of buying APD (where there is only one issuer providing this feature now). I tend to think that regardless of opinions on if it's right or wrong, it would be poor strategy for the airline to continue to chase this when essentially a lot of noise points to it becoming a less appealing revenue stream and something that could be removed from them. Let's not pretend that just because the govt. is the largest shareholder they are going to pass an opportunity to do something populist.
2) The airline is in a tough position with a customer base as diverse as its competitors (if not more diverse) but probably not as resourced as QF to deal with it - they are about half the size of QF and not THAT much larger than VA. I think better lounge differentiation in hubs would make a big difference and allow the airline to cater to multiple customer types and needs, but this is expensive and when comparing other airlines of a similar size they can barely afford their own international lounges, so again not a great position for them to be in but probably something they need to start thinking of in at least AKL.
3) There seems to be a real need for them to tailor and differentiate the loyalty experience more than they currently are - the regional NZ v. metro NZ/AKL v. Aus argument comes up time and time again as an issue and needs to be considered. For instance, rather than parking could they offer regionally based flyers airport transfer vouchers etc. Offer a suite of "rewards" at each level and let the flyer choose how they want to be rewarded for their loyalty. Personally 90% of my flying is Domestic and TT (and yes I hit elite off this in around about 5-6months) - so long haul upgrade vouchers are a waste as my work travel policy flies me J on long haul (again - appreciate that this is not the case for everyone). I have no real need for long haul upgrade vouchers - I'd way rather more Short Haul recognition. But with technology they should be more easily allow me to go in and select from a range of options a set of rewards that suit me an my travel preferences, but also cost the airline a set amount. Also, because they are the dominant player - the domestic market is theirs to lose - they should be ensuring that they keep a stranglehold on it.

As an aside - I've never understood why they don't chase Aussie customers harder. I would never have joined AP when living back home. If I needed a *A program it would have hands down been Krisflyer as the earn and burn opportunities are easier and they partner with VA for domestic burn. I can't help but think that the VA breakup was a poor strategic decision.

sbiddle

Sure, that's among people who care about being part of a FPP. We forget the vast majority of people simply couldn't care less. We are the minority, not the majority.

Australia is a key feeder for NZ long-haul routes, it's why they compete so aggressively on price, and why they have over 30% Australian traffic on some routes.

kiwifrequentflyer

I agree but my comment was in regards specifically to Air NZ being poor value as a FFP. I agree most people don't care and will fly with whoever. But that was specifically in regards to someone pointing out that if FFP was a concern for you, as an Australian, it is poor value, so the FFP is unlikely to sway anyone over there towards Air NZ.

Obviously there are other reasons to fly with them and again obviously most pax don't pay attention to FFPs, in this forum we are the absolute minority. But we were discussing the hypothetical situation of an Australian pax looking at FFP and assessing the value for them. And with Air NZ it doesn't exist. That was my point.